As they were only twelve years apart in age, you would not say that a conversation between Albert Einstein and Warner Brothers studio mogul Jack Warner was impossible . . . just improbable. Einstein wintered in Pasadena in the early 1930s, and he occasionally ventured west to Hollywood. It was on such a visit that this youngest of the four brothers who ran Warner had the opportunity to amusingly denounce nepotism. Yet, proving the old adage that in humor there is often truth, Jack Warner would eventually fire his own son and force his brothers out of the studio.

It was not the first time that someone of lesser intellect teased Einstein about his work. At a 1927 party in London, the bombastic Elsa Maxwell asked him to explain his theory of relativity using words of only one syllable. His answer must not have pleased her. She later went on record stating, "Nothing spoils a good party as much as a genius."

Jack Warner and Albert Einstein at Warner Brothers Studio, 1931.

Jack Warner was not Einstein's only Hollywood acquaintance. Einstein attended the premiere of City Lights, and he found more in common with another genius, albeit of a different sort, Charlie Chaplin. They conversed about their respective talents.

Of Chaplin, Einstein remarked, "What I admire most about your art is its universality. You do not say a word, and yet ... the world understands you."

Chaplin replied, "But your fame is even greater: The world admires you [even] when nobody understands you."